


Cybertronian Exchange 2021

by newbandnamethx



Series: Events/Exchanges/Gifts [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence, Dating, First Dates, M/M, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29442066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newbandnamethx/pseuds/newbandnamethx
Summary: Drift and Rodimus reconcile and go on a date. For Lohikaar as part of the Cybertronian Card Exchange.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Rodimus | Rodimus Prime
Series: Events/Exchanges/Gifts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160420
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Cybertronian Exchange 2021

The Lost Light sat still in the shadow of a nearby dwarf planet. The halls were quiet and deserted, eerily so. Rodimus was in his captain’s quarters, relaxing, or at least attempting to. He was lying on his berth staring at the ceiling, tracing its seams endlessly.

They were at a standstill, as the sky around them occasionally filled with flashes of light as asteroids from a wayward belt caught fire entering into the atmosphere of a nearby planet. They had docked the ship, both for safety, and for the view. Most of the crew was clustered at a window or outside on one of the ship's decks, letting their pedes dangle as they watched the phenomenon.

Showers like these weren’t that uncommon back on Cybertron, or even just milling about in the depths of space. But with the tide of war came the loss of idle time to sit and watch and enjoy the wonders of the skies.

Looking up was a peacetime luxury, it seemed, especially for the mecha who had been stationed on Earth millennium upon millennium.

Their destination was nearby, a smaller planet a few paces off where they had received a distress signal from. It would have to wait until after the shower was over. The distance was too short for them to safely quantum jump, and Brainstorm had emphatically explained how narrow their odds of coming out in one piece were if they just tried to wing it. Rodimus hoped whatever distress they were in it wasn’t too distressful.

He snorted to himself.

Usually he’d be out watching the meteors himself. Hell, he’d be out riding them. Unbecoming for a captain, he was well aware, Magnus had drilled the point into his head every time he so much as glanced longingly at a meteor passing by. 

There was one simple reason why he wasn’t peering out the windows of the Lost Light gawking, or even hiking up to the top of the Lost Light with magnetized pedes to get the very best view. And that reason was simple.

Drift.

He’d come back alongside Ratchet, just a few weeks ago, and the two of them were close. Very close. It was a wonder to Rodimus, seeing as how often they had been at each other’s throats, but he guessed wild space adventures changed a lot of things. Did they ever….

Rodimus sighed, long and heavy, as the unwanted image of his friend was conjured up by his processor. Drift had greeted him and been friendly, and it was almost as if no harm done. But Rodimus wasn’t naive enough to believe that. Neither was Ratchet. In fact, the medic cornered him not long after they returned.

“Rodimus,” Ratchet’s voice raised uneasy prickles on Rodimus’ plating, as the mech grimaced to himself before turning around, smiling brightly and holding his arms out wide.

“Ratchet!” He said brightly. “Nice to have you back, how was the trip-”

Ratchet waved him off, old blue optics glaring at him as he uttered stiffly, “Enough of that. We should talk.”

“Oh yeah, Ratch? What about?” Rodimus tried to keep his voice easygoing, but it was a tough task under the leaden gaze of Ratchet. He could feel his frame coiling up, tensing, as if preparing for a fight.

“You’re smarter than that,” Ratchet huffed, folding his arms in front of him as he continued to stare Rodimus down. “You know what. I just spent a good while cleaning up your mess.”

It shouldn’t have surprised him that a doctor was always one to cut right to the spark of the matter. His words were sharp as scalpels and Rodimus was well wary of them. Not a lot of mecha had the spark to chew out the captain of a ship, but Ratchet was old and jaded and probably didn’t give two rusty bolts if his mouth got him marooned on a deserted planet or something.

He was uniquely experienced in giving Primes a piece of his mind, it seemed. 

“I’m sorry about Drift,” Rodimus began, only to halt as he saw Ratchet looking incensed. “What, what did I say?” he demanded, quickly growing exasperated with Ratchet’s usual snide act. The disdain did hurt. He didn’t have a lot of authority figures he respected, but Ratchet was one of them. He was basically the grouchy old grandpa of the Autobots, and Rodimus was well aware he’d been failing Ratchet’s favor for a while now.

Worst of it was, Ratchet was fair with his judgment, almost extraordinarily so. He wasn’t exactly an Autobot loyalist, neither was he a Decepticon sympathizer. He’d seen the worst of both. He was well equipped in dealing the evenhanded truth.

“You’re sorry about him? What about him exactly are you sorry about? That you tossed him out on his aft being one of the few he could trust? That you betrayed his friendship to save your own aft? Tell me Rodimus, where do you even begin to start being sorry?”

Ratchet’s words were as angry and hurt as his expression, Ratchet’s face screwing up in indignation and fury. Though Rodimus hid it well, they’d cut him all over. He knew Ratchet was expressing an anger Drift himself probably never would, but had every right to.

“Yeah, I guess ‘I screwed up’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Rodimus tried, rubbing the back of his helm. The false bravado he’d worn like a cloak so long, he now found too heavy to bear. So instead he tried weary acceptance. He looked up at Ratchet, optics steady, and Ratchet was reminded how old Rodimus was and how much of the war he’d seen and what he’d lost.

Ratchet deflated a bit and looked at Rodimus tiredly. “I know you Rodimus, you’re a disaster, but you can be better than this. Talk to him, don’t just let him brush you off and pretend like things are fine.” Ratchet clapped him on the shoulder briefly as he passed, and then nudged him aside as he strode off down the corridor.

He paused halfway through his exit and looked back at Rodimus, expression inscrutable.

“You know, Drift still adores you, more than he should.” With that Ratchet kept walking, rounding the corner and disappearing, leaving Rodimus alone with a heavy feeling in his gut.

\---

That had been yesterday, and Rodimus had made himself scarce around the Lost Light ever since.

The memory of meeting Ratchet replayed in his head as he lay in his captain’s chamber, the silence of the evening pressing in. Rodimus tried his best to shove down the thought that had been eating at him

But it surfaced anyway, the image of Drift and Ratchet getting off the ship and smiling at each other. The way they seemed so in tune with one another, and then the way that look of calm contentment faded into a drawn mask of civility when Drift’s eyes landed on Rodimus. 

Rodimus leapt up out of his berth, because of all the things he was going to do, take whatever was inevitably coming his way while lying down was not it. So he got up, stalked out into the hall, and before he could really think on where he was headed, he was there.

He found Drift where he had usually found the mech when he’s upset, meditating in front of the oil reservoir. He’d started spending a lot of time there around the time they’d fished Red Alert out of the murky depths. It was a paradoxical thing, finding peace in a place where something so stressful had occurred, but he supposed with a life like Drift’s he had to find his peace where he could.

The placid surface of the reservoir was flat, black as ever, like a sky with no stars. Rodimus thought back to Red Alert and a pang of raw guilt ran through his fuel tank, tingling out through his lines and threatening to swallow him whole. 

Rodimus collected himself and instead looked out ahead at his friend. Drift’s back was turned away from him. If experience had taught him anything, his eyes were closed but he’s well aware of Rodimus’ presence.

Rodimus knew he’d have to make the first move if this was going to go anywhere. 

“Hey Drift,” he started, sidling around to see Drift from the front. His friend’s face was as calm as the oil reservoir, giving away no ripples of emotions, no current of inner thought.

His eyes opened slowly, focusing in on Rodimus. 

“Oh, Roddy, it’s good to see you,” Drift said cheerfully, face breaking out into another far too cheesy grin. It was reminding him of his own feigned positivity toward Ratchet earlier. He knew Drift well though, well enough to tell when the mech was going through the motions with him. If he was being honest? It hurt. Drift was seldom fake with him, he’d told Rodimus that himself.

He said he didn’t need to be. Apparently now he’d found the need. 

“Hey, yeah, listen, I was thinking we should talk? About what happened?” Rodimus started, unsure of himself. Screwing up wasn’t a big deal, he screwed up big constantly, nearly all the time. Important stuff. 

Point was, Rodimus was used to letting people down, but he wasn’t used to being confined with them in a small space where he had to have the refuse of his failure shoved in his face day after day after day, for an indefinite amount of time. 

Even bigger point was, he supposed, he wasn’t used to caring what others thought of him. It was easy to shrug off their assertions about him, to comfort himself by telling himself that they didn’t know, didn’t understand, they couldn’t, wouldn’t.

But Drift did know him, he knew his ugly vulnerabilities and his shortcomings and how he felt about them. Drift, he realized, knew more about him than he even necessarily wanted, Drift was like that. He was easy to open up to, easy to find common understanding with. And he knew he’d been that for Drift as well, which had probably made his betrayal cut all the more.

“Look, I, uh,” Rodimus began again, his processor struggling to find the words.

“Rodimus, it’s fine you don’t have to,” Drift said smiling kindly, but there was an edge of tepid patience to his smile, like he was watching a sparkling struggling through his recitations. 

“No, I have to,” Rodimus said stubbornly, looking up at Drift with eyes flashing. “Look, I screwed up big. I wanted to live up to everyone’s expectations of me, I wanted to live up to my own expectations of myself. But I ended up doing the opposite of that and losing my best friend in the process. I’m sorry Drift.”

“Rodimus,” Drift’s smile was a bit more genuine but the hurt was still plain in his features. “It’s okay, I know how you are, I don’t hold any of it against you.”

Rodimus struggled not to flinch internally at the implications of “how he was”.

“I don’t want,” Rodimus had to struggle to keep himself from exploding into shouting. Who ever got through an apology by shouting? “I don’t want to be the kind of mech that throws away his best friend for the sake of his pride.”

“Best friend, huh?” Drift smiled to himself before looking at Rodimus, eyes full of brazen confidence for a moment, unhindered and open.

“Rodimus, we were apart for a long time. And I spent a long time with Ratchet. He helped me figure a lot of things out.” As Drift spoke Rodimus felt his spark sink, though he tried to push away the feeling so it didn’t control him. Instead, he mustered himself together.

Rodimus laughed. He was going for hearty but instead it just sounded hollow. “Don’t tell me, you two already set the date for your conjuxing. At least tell me you’ll let me attend the ceremony,” Rodimus was rambling, and he knew he was. Sometimes talking just helped him stave off the feelings by focusing on something else.

“What? No, nothing like that,” Drift laughed, actually sincerely laughed, rich and warm and rolling, and Rodimus’ spark squeezed a little.

“What? I thought you two-”

“We’re amica now, I suppose. Sorry you missed the ceremony. We did it rather last minute because we weren’t sure how long we’d last out there,” Drift said with a shrug and a slight smile to himself.

“Your amica,” Rodimus was a bit winded. He was barely aware of Ratchet being able to keep acquaintances, let alone amica. He would’ve expected a whirlwind romance before he’d guessed the rickety old mech had been taken in by the wiles of deep friendship.

“Yeah, so anyways, Ratchet and I were talking a lot. Some of it about my past and all that,” Rodimus nodded. “Some of it about you,” Rodimus stopped nodding, looking at Drift intently.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m not going to say I like what you did, or that it wasn’t one of the most painful things someone’s ever done, and I’m counting them making my Decepticon badge,” Drift huffed a short, bitter laugh. “But I still care about you Roddy.”

“Care about me?” Rodimus found himself getting caught on the phrase as he gawked at Drift. The swordmech moved in closer, eyes becoming lidded, his face moving near to Rodimus’, filling his vision. 

“Yeah,” he said, warm breath ghosting Rodimus’ lips. “Ratchet said you’re like a bad case of rust, because I can’t seem to get rid of you. I kept bringing up memories of us, fun times we’d had together, even though it hurt.”

“Drift I missed you a lot,” Rodimus murmured looking down at his friend’s face and pursing his lips as he struggled not to say more. Say something stupid. Impulsive. Something too much. He was always a bit too much wasn’t he?

“Me too,” Drift’s head was resting right over his spark. There was a long pause in which the two of them just stood like that. “I like you Roddy.”

“You know there’s a bunch of meteors burning up in the second closest planet’s atmosphere? We could get there in about ten minutes with the Rod Pod,” Rodimus began, barely being able to hide the smile in his voice. His spark felt light and jittery and that always made him want to move.

“They were kind of hard to miss, Ratchet and I nearly got hit by a few on the way in,” Drift chuckled, eyes glinting. “So Rodimus, are you going to take me on a date?” he asked, holding out his hand to Rodimus. Rodimus just stared at the downturned appendage, gaping slightly.

“By like you meant- you- are you sure?” Rodimus fumbled over his own words. He was, as one of his teammates had told him once, “Never one to accept something good that came too easy.” He had a way of making things hard for himself. And Drift he was starting to become sure, was more than just something good. He was great, maybe even the best thing Rodimus had encountered since- since he didn’t know when.

“I told you,” Drift smiled, grabbing Rodimus’ own with his and pulling him along. “Ratchet and I talked a while. If you take me on a nice enough date, I’ll forgive you,” Drift said, punctuating his proposition with a grin.

“Must have been some talk,” Rodimus muttered disbelievingly under his breath. “Deal.”

“Oh I can tell you all about it later, after you take me out,” Drift said with a sly smile.

Rodimus led them out of the reservoir and outside a nearby supply closet. “If we’re going to do this, you’re going to need these.” Rodimus had used his captain’s override to grab a pair from the supply closet and handed them to Drift. He held up a pair of clip on thrusters and handed them to Drift.

Brainstorm had made them, of course, they were mostly for mecha on rivet duty, in case for some reason the Lost Light shook them loose, the boots let a bot propel themselves to safety. 

“Here, I know you can’t fly really, but now you can… kinda. At a minimum they’ll help you not smash into the ground as hard,” Rodimus said with a nervous grin. 

Drift took the boots and turned them over in his hands, “You’re going to show me how to use these right? I like to think I’m a fast learner but not this fast.”

“‘Course,” Rodimus nodded.

A short while later the two of them were in the launch bay. They were crammed together in the Rod Pod, or it felt that way with Drift sitting right next to him. Maybe he had been alone too long. His… notoriety had definitely been climbing as of late. Mecha didn’t tend to want to keep him company for very long.

But either way, Drift was close to him now, he noticed it as Drift’s knee brushed his own. Rodimus swallowed dryly as he started up the Rod Pod and the two of them started off in the direction of the asteroids. 

“You used to do this all the time, didn’t you?” Drift asked casually after a few moments of silence between them.

Rodimus glanced at him as he jerked the Rod Pod sharply to dodge an asteroid heading their way. The pod tilted dizzily and a part of Rodimus fluttered eagerly, welcoming the bare taste of excitement. He’d been far too cooped up, he realized. 

“Asteroid surfing? Oh yeah. Not much else to do when you’re bored and outposted somewhere where High Command doesn’t have to look at you,” Rodimus said with a shrug.

“Also did it because it let me activate my outlier. You’d think the Autobots would be gung ho about having a living sun as a weapon. But nah, most of my commanders had too much restraint to make use of it. I probably got more punishments for using my ability than actual allowances to use it in combat.”

Rodimus smirked, “But who can tell when you’re riding a flaming piece of space rock?”

Drift laughed and Rodimus smiled along with him. A part of him was still a bit queasy, a bit disconcerted by how easy their reconciliation had been. Surely this wasn’t it? Maybe Drift had some sort of revenge planned? Rodimus squinted at his friend a moment.

Drift seemed to notice his staring and cocked his head slightly, “What is it Roddy? Your aura says you seem troubled.”

“Is all of this okay? Are we okay?”

Drift shrugged and looked out the front of the Rod Pod, watching a meteor begin to heat up as it entered the planet’s atmosphere. “I don’t think we’ll ever have the same relationship we used to Roddy.”

Rodimus’ face fell at that and his gaze hardened as he tried to focus on steering the Rod Pod.

“But that’s not a bad thing. I was scared of you a bit, if I’m being honest. I didn’t realize it at the time but, I was terrified of letting you down. I guess it didn’t even occur to me that the reverse could happen,” Drift said as he propped his chin in his hand and continued looking out at the stars.

Some of the pain in Rodimus’ spark eased at that, and their conversation died away as they drew in closer. Rodimus had to focus on dodging asteroids. He landed them on one of the planet’s moons, just barely avoiding getting dinged by an asteroid twice the size of the Lost Light as he did so.

The two of them stepped onto the surface of the moon. It let out a small crunch and Rodimus felt a little thrill within his spark as he watched the asteroids whizzing by, heating up and bursting into brilliant, incandescent colors as they either entered the planet’s atmosphere, or skimmed it, skipping off into space as they exited.

He turned to Drift, giddy smile in place on his face, and Drift returned it.

“Alright so there’s a sort of art to picking the right one,” Rodimus began as they stood looking out at the asteroids passing by. 

“Enlighten me,” Drift encouraged with a chuckle.

“You want to pick one maybe two, three times your size. Any smaller and it will burn up before you get much of a right, any bigger and it’s hard as pit to steer,” Rodimus said. His helm turned sharply as he spotted a good sized asteroid leisurely floating by.

“There’s a great one, want to ride the first one with me?” Rodimus forgot all his uneasiness with Drift in an instant as he extended his hand and looked at Drift eagerly.

“Sound’s amazing,” Drift agreed, taking Rodimus’ hand in his own. And with that they were shooting off after the asteroid. Rodimus settled them on it and then took a step back from Drift.

“Okay so you spread your feet apart, about shoulder’s length, and you just lean the direction you want to go. It might get bumpy and you might fall off, but it happens,” Rodimus was so caught up in walking through the basics with Drift he didn’t notice the other smiling at him.

“Did you fall off a lot the first time you rode these?” 

Rodimus threw back his head and laughed, “Primus did I ever, broke off my spoiler on one side once because I jumped off way too late and landed wrong.”

Drift looked worried a moment, brow creasing in concern. Rodimus reached out and clasped him by his shoulders, “Don’t worry, that only happened because I had no one teaching me, I learned on my own. Just jump off a couple thousand feet before the ground, enough time to ignite your thrusters.

Rodimus nodded at the clip on attachments on Drift’s pedes.

“Are you going to show me how to use these already?” Drift turned one foot to show off the thruster to Rodimus. Rodimus flashed him a haphazard grin.

“I think it’s best to learn in practice, don’t worry, I’ll hold onto you the whole time.”

Their asteroid gradually began to pick up speed and heat as it neared the planet's atmosphere. As they descended it only grew hotter and hotter as the asteroid beneath them erupted into flames.

“Wow,” Drift breathed, not that Rodimus or anyone else could see it.

“Okay altitude sensors say we’re at about twenty thousand feet from impact, now’s a good time to jump,” Before Drift could fully process Rodimus’ words, he had yanked the two of them off the asteroid and they were free falling in the air. 

“Alright, now orient yourself and activate your thrusters.” True to his words, Rodimus was holding onto Drift from behind. Drift angled his pedes down and then manually switched on his thrusters. The sudden jolt of him accelerating threw Rodimus off his back and Drift found himself hovering a moment watching his friend rapidly turning into a distant speck under him.

Then with a brilliant flash and a whoop, Rodimus was rocketing up towards him. 

“Hey, lookit you, speedster of the ground and now speedster of the skies,” Rodimus cheered as he approached Drift at a concerning speed. Rodimus crashed into him, making Drift worry for a split moment that he was going to knock them both out of the air. Rodimus was laughing breathlessly and before Drift could process it, he was shooting them both upwards, Drift dangling in tow by the grip Rodimus had on his wrist.

Rodimus looked down at him, optics sparkling and brimming with mirth. He looked young and carefree, a lot like he had when Drift first met him. Back when he had gauged him as shallow.

The next time around they split up on two asteroids that were just about the right size and entering the atmosphere at the same time. From the get go Rodimus noticed Drift was a bit more wobbly on his own. 

About halfway through their descent, Drift gave one last death wobble and fell free of his asteroid. Rodimus watched his friend somersault through the air at a worrying speed. He leapt off his own meteor, activated his outlier ability and reached out to Drift as he neared, catching him around the middle.

“Aww come on Roddy, I was getting the hang of it,” Drift teased, though his optics were overbright in a way that indicated the mech had been feeling a light dose of terror. 

“You were going to ride it right into the ground,” Rodimus huffed, as he landed the two of them down on the planet’s surface.

“Thanks for saving me,” Drift said, eyes warm as he looked over at Rodimus. Rodimus felt his cheeks grow hot and looked off to the side.

“Course, what kind of captain would I be-” Rodimus started and then cut himself off as he realized the imminent peril of the question he was about to ask. “Yeah, right,” he finished lamely, scuffing the ground with his pede.

“You’re a good captain Rodimus,” Drift said calmly, coming around to stand in front of him and catching his face and turning it so that Rodimus was looking him steadily in the eyes. “And you have a good spark,” Drift reached out and touched Rodimus’ spark.

“I missed you,” Rodimus said softly. “I had to make a lot of hard choices without you.”

“Wish I could have made them for you?” Drift’s tone was wary and slightly reproachful. His expression reflected those emotions in kind. Rodimus sighed. He supposed he’d earned that suspicion. 

“Primus no,” Rodimus closed his eyes for a moment, voice overcome with emotion. “Drift I- I’m glad you weren’t there. We lost some people.”

“Hey,” Drift said softly, expression easing up as he looked at his friend with gentle concern. “There isn’t a rust speckled commander out there who hasn’t seen his share of losses.”

“Are you saying I look rusty?” Rodimus cocked an eyebrow at Drift. 

“I’m saying you’re too hard on yourself,” Drift smiled, hand brushing Rodimus’ plating as he drew near. “Come on, surely we have enough time to surf a few more before Magnus figures out what we’re up to.”

With that Drift grabs on to Rodimus’ hand as he launches them both off the surface of the planet, back into the sky where meteors are streaking above them, tracing trails of brilliant light across the heavens as they go out in a blaze of fury, flame and heat.

“You know I always wanted you to be proud of me,” Drift said as they were once again huddled together in the Rod Pod. 

“Magnus told me as much,” Rodimus recalled, thinking back to the numerous times Magnus had tried to warn him about Drift’s near sycophantic adoration. “Thing is, I never got why.”

“I still adore you,” Drift said softly, tenderly, and Rodimus turned to him. Drift’s armor was luminescent as a meteor streaked by them outside.

“Again, why? If anyone has a past to be ashamed of between the two of us, it’s me, Drift. I have done a lot of things I can never make up for, to a lot of very good people.”

“I don’t think you and I are all that different in that regard Roddy,” Drift murmured softly as his eyes grew distant and sad.

“Drift do you think we can move past all this?” Rodimus asked, and Drift didn’t think he had ever heard the mech beside him ask a question so timidly. A part of him was almost flattered at the show of nerves.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to take me out if I didn’t still have feelings,” Drift reached out to touch Rodimus’ shoulder and felt the slight flinch at his contact. Drift drew close and he was aiming for a peck on the cheek when Rodimus’ turned his helm and kissed Drift hard, full on his mouth. Drift made a slight startled noise, but didn’t pull back.

Instead he leaned in, hands brushing the cabling on Rodimus’ neck, eliciting a shiver from the mech under him.

As they parted Rodimus began to feel a heat rising in his face and Drift likewise.

“You still have to tell me all about your trip,” Rodimus said after a moment of awkward silence.

“And you need to fill me in on what happened while I was gone,” Drift replied. 

“Can’t wait to tell you all about it,” Rodimus snorted, and he wasn’t sure how sincere that statement was. Digging up the recent past was going to be painful, he was already doing his best to put it behind him. But he knew he couldn’t keep closing himself off from his failures, especially if he wanted things to continue to progress with Drift.

That thought brought a burning question into his mind, “Drift what are we?”

Drift glanced at him sideways and shrugged without responding. Rodimus continued, “I mean, are we friends? This doesn’t feel like friends, unless you’ve gotten into the habit of kissing Ratchet like that, in which case I’m going to need an apology for putting that mental image in my head.”

“No I do not kiss Ratchet like that,” Drift said, fondly exasperated. “I have been known to give him a peck on the cheek now and then, so you’ll have to get used to that.”

Rodimus made a fake gagging noise while Drift chuckled. Secretly, a part of him was thrilled over the implication that Drift wanted him around. Another part of him was more than a little nervous about the implication he and Ratchet would be spending time together.

As Rodimus became lost in his thoughts Drift started speaking, and it took a moment for Rodimus to snap out of his reverie and listen to what he was saying.

“-sure how you expected things to go, or even what you want from me but, I’m open to exploring things if you are,” Drift finished and then looked at Rodimus expectantly. Rodimus gawked back, all the words being swept clean from his processor for a solid moment as he struggled to piece together what he’d missed. 

“Does this mean we’re going on more dates?” Rodimus finally settled on asking in the most dumbstruck voice.

Drift responded by leaning in and kissing Rodimus gently, “I suppose it does.”

The two of them get caught and escorted to Magnus’ office immediately upon exiting the Rod Pod. Rodimus was kept longer than Drift for a more thorough chewing out seeing as he was the superior officer in this case.

Rodimus was in his own head most of the chewing out. He’s thinking about how Drift’s lips felt on his, how good it was Drift was smiling at him again, how nice the feather light brush of Drift’s hand on his frame had felt. Magnus didn’t seem to notice or care that Rodimus had mentally checked out of his lecture. At this point, Magnus’ lectures had become more of a mutual punishment in which they both wasted each other’s time to a satisfactory degree. 

Finally, as Magnus’ droning came to an end Rodimus roused himself out of his day dreams. Rodimus glanced at his chrono to find the lecture was abnormally short.

“We all done here Mags?” Rodimus asked, slightly surprised but not willing to squint too hard at the opportunity to get out of the office sooner than expected.

“Although I am not pleased with the method, I am happy to see you and Drift seem to have reconciled,” Magnus commented, looking down at Rodimus with a surprising amount of warmth.

“Aww, thanks Mags, you’re tugging my spark.” Rodimus could feel that familiar heat crawling up into his face again and he did not want to look like a spark addled fool in front of the most stoic and disapproving mech on the ship.

Magnus waved him off with dismissive snort, “You’re free to go, stay out of trouble.”

When Rodimus exited Magnus’ office, he came face to face with the bot he least wanted to see at the moment, and surprise, surprise, that bot wasn’t always Megatron.

“Hey Ratchet,” Rodimus didn’t bother to keep the tiredness out of his voice. “Heard you have an amica now, congrats. Was a bit of a surprise, honestly.”

“Surprised you and me both,” Ratchet huffed, but his mouth curled up in one corner and Rodimus took that as a good sign. Primus knew Ratchet couldn’t manage more than a slightly affable scowl when his mood was foul.

“Walk with me a bit,” Ratchet said in that tone that indicated either Rodimus could listen to him or his next trip to the medbay would result in dubious repairs. Rodimus acceded without a word, falling into step with the medic’s trodding gait. 

“What’s up Ratchet?” Rodimus asked after they had ambled around in silence for a bit. “If this is about Drift again, I alread-.”

“Y’know the one thing Drift and I don’t see eye to eye on?” Ratchet cut him off.

“Sense of humor?” Rodimus guessed with a shrug.

“Alright, make it two things. But no, the kid has a stupid amount of blind faith in certain things and people,” Ratchet muttered, though he was smiling again. Rodimus was really starting to get why they were amica a bit more now.

“Yeah, he’s funny like that,” Rodimus murmured, thinking of Drift and his long talks about auras and energies.

“Yeah well, thing his, he always had this diehard faith in you,” Ratchet tilted his head to stare hard at Rodimus. “I never got it. Even after you’d screwed him over big time, he didn’t seem like he could give it up. Was worried about him, seemed obsessive.”

Ratchet paused a moment before continuing, “But then I thought, maybe he’s been seeing a side you I never did this whole time. Drift can be oddly perceptive, as weird as he is. Good at reading people.Good at guessing their potential for change. I still don’t know what about you drives him so crazy,” Ratchet trailed off again.

“I don’t know if he even knows,” Rodimus was staring off down the hall, eyes distant. 

“Ratchet I think Drift and I are dating,” Rodimus blurted before he could stop himself. A part of him just really wanted to know Ratchet’s reaction.

“Why do you think I’m talking to you? I know that,” Ratchet grumped. “We’ll probably be seeing each other around a lot, it’s why I came around to make amends.”

“Amends?” Rodimus was beyond confused now, their conversation hadn’t really sounded that much like amending. 

“I misjudged you Rodimus, you really turned things around and I’m proud. I hope you and Drift do well for each other,” Ratchet placed a hand on Rodimus’ arm and for once, that fond smile was directed at him. 

“Thanks Ratch, that means a lot coming from you,” Rodimus struggled to keep his tone even from the weight of the emotion he felt. 

“No problem kid, you should join Drift and I at Swerve’s for fuel this evening.” With that Ratchet clapped Rodimus on the back and was striding off. 

Rodimus found himself standing alone with an odd tingle in his spark, and bright eyes turned towards the future.

**Author's Note:**

> Slow posting a bit lately.


End file.
